WI the French never transferred the capital of Indochina from Saigon to Hanoi?

raharris1973

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According to wiki, Saigon was capital of French Indochina until 1902, when the capital was moved to Hanoi.

What if Saigon was simply retained as the French imperial capital for the region?

In this way the government would continue to be closer to the concentration of French plantation interests.

Although the butterfly effect could start making large-scale changes happen, that's essentially an exercise in creative writing & author's choice. I can't think of any obvious near-term linear *knock-ons* .

Longer term, during WWI or the late 20s era of unrest and the Yen Bai mutiny, perhaps the Hanoi and Tonkin region will be a bit more rebellious without being the administrative center and with civil service jobs for Tonkinese elites and Mandarins being even scarcer than in OTL?

Presuming that doesn't drastically change the trajectory of world of local regional history, the next time period in which the location of the capital might have strategic relevance could be in the era of WWII in Europe and the Sino-Japanese war.

Even though we shouldn't expect the colonial forces to be any more formidable, a French Indochina centered on Saigon instead of Hanoi might be more prone to be resistant to Japanese demands for a couple reasons. First, Saigon is further than Hanoi from large concentrations of Japanese air power and land power, and secondly because the French community in Saigon and the south was more Gaullist than Vichy in its sympathies, at least according to the account I read in Myopic Grandeur, about France in the Far East.
 
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Would the trajectory of history change if the capital of Vietnam was located in Phu Xuan, or Hue until 1945?
 

raharris1973

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Would the trajectory of history change if the capital of Vietnam was located in Phu Xuan, or Hue until 1945?

It might- either of the effects I discussed before, possible increased unrest in the far north, and a reduced sense of vulnerability from Japan, might come into play.

Wasn't Hue the seat of the Vietnamese Emperors throughout the period of French Indochina and in the last century or two of Vietnamese independence.

Hue also could have been an interesting alternate capital for South Vietnam
 
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